Wall-E

A lonely robot in a post-apocalyptic garbage ridden Earth discovers adventure and a new meaning to life after it appears from the sky in the form of a sleek high tech scouting robot. After hundreds of years of carrying out his duties of cleaning up the planet he eagerly follows the path that destiny has laid before him.

The story of Wall-E (Ben Burtt), a small mobile trash compactor with a cute and lovable personality, captured the hearts of thousands, including mine, when released on the 27th of June in 2008. Taking place hundreds of years after humans have covered the planet in trash, Wall-E carries out his purpose of creation which is cleaning up the Earth by compacting and organizing all of the scrap. In doing so, he performs his duty on a daily basis while collecting odd bobbles and trinkets that spark his curiosity and maintains a companionship with a cockroach that Pixar successfully made me believe was a tiny lovable puppy in disguise.

Though Wall-E is content with packing garbage and discovering interesting items along the way, his little computer chip heart yearns for the one thing missing in his life; Love. That is until one day a giant mysterious rocket comes from the sky and the sleek clean robot of Wall-E’s dreams emerges. It is from that point on when Wall-E steels his determination, pun intended, to woo this robot at all costs.

Wall-E must overcome a good amount of obstacles, both internal and external, as this new robot has a deadly enough focus on achieving her own goals that Wall-E must work up the courage to introduce himself to her, but not get shot and destroyed in the process. Yes, she has an energy cannon attached to her arm. After she has a streak of unfortunate luck in finding what she is looking for, a giant magnet aboard an old oil tanker acts as the final straw before she takes a moment to relieve her frustration. It is afterwards when Wall-E takes the opportunity to properly introduce himself to her amongst the romantic lighting of old oil tankers exploding in the background. He discovers that her name is Eve (Elissa Knight) and builds up a beautiful friendship by introducing her to all the knick-knacks he’s collected over the years in addition to the magic of movies and bubble wrap.

However, the real obstacles begin when Wall-E is literally taken out of his element and thrusted into the unknown. As Wall-E shows Eve his collection of items, he just so happens to show her the exact item she had been looking for. She stores it in her body which causes her to go into stasis making this heartwarming display of two adorable robots getting to know each other last for about five minutes. Poor Wall-E not only tries to figure out what happened to her, but is taken to the far out, distant, and beautiful void that is outer space when she is collected by the ship that she came on.

Conflicts and obstacles appear one after another as Wall-E must navigate his way through a completely new and fast paced environment of more advanced technology. Additionally, we are introduced to what fate the humans have brought upon themselves as well the main antagonist of the story being Auto, the auto pilot of the ship (MacInTalk). Auto makes for an excellent antagonist as it indirectly opposes Wall-E’s goals by following a simple rule which is to keep the humans alive. Though Wall-E’s intentions mainly consist of getting closer to Eve, the decisions made lead to an entangled web of chaos, romance, and drama as the status quo of the humans is disrupted. Recliners are broken, tables are flipped, and people scream in a manner similar to how I get out of bed in the morning.

In addition to Wall-E’s adventure, the film does a great job in implementing an interesting message by showing us a possible future should we humans rely too much on our technological advancements. While having a Wall-E or Eve robot to keep one company doesn’t sound like a bad idea, it can become a little scary should we, humans, ever get to the point of relying on our technology so much that we even forget what a book is. But if that’s not the part of the story you would want to focus on, then there is always the enjoyable romantic comedy of two lovable robots discovering love. Overall, Wall-E is an enjoyable film that portrays romance in one of the purest ways possible. When it comes to achieving one’s pursuit in love, Wall-E has definitely set the bar high enough to make a luxurious dinner date look like slapping lunch meat on a paper plate and calling it a steak.

Eddieson Burkhalter | Writing ContributorB.A | Japanese | San Diego State Univ.
My name is Eddieson. I’m an open minded dreamer that likes to look for new opportunities, experiences, and challenges in life to make things a bit more interesting. After graduating from San Diego State University with a Japanese degree and minor in Business, I landed an office job in Shinjuku, Japan where I dealt with online marketing matters as well as content creation. Though I come from an international business background I could never escape the alluring call of an emotionally manipulating story, regardless of the medium, that could turn the toughest body builder into a two year old child watching The Muppets and eating “pig newtons”. So long as the story is well done it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s presented as a comic, video game, anime, book, movie, or even an interpretive dance with bananas and jello. After some intense independent study I have not only been more than inspired to join the industry, but brought to a point where I wonder why I gave up pursuing this stuff in college and turned to a course of pulling my hair out before each exam. Regardless, I love stories and hope to be presented with the opportunity to tell my own; most likely through writing. With a fire in my heart and goals set I am actively gaining skills each day to hopefully one day help others in their endeavors as well as achieve my own dreams. |Instagram @BlaEddieBla| View My Articles